The last time the Men in Red played against Louisville City FC in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the club finished with a 1-0 victory in the Fourth Roundof the 2015 tournament. This Wednesday (June 18), four-time Open Cup champion Chicago Fire will face USL side Louisville once again at Toyota Park for a quarterfinals matchup (7:30 PM | TICKETS).
The stakes are now higher. Both teams are a mere three games away from the coveted title and are looking to be one of four teams to secure a spot in the semifinals.
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The Fire are placing a strong emphasis on their quest to achieve their fifth Open Cup trophy. Against FC Dallas in Texas on Saturday -- the third game of a jam-packed, five-matches-in-fifteen-days schedule -- head coach Veljko Paunović rested several key starters.
Captain Dax McCarty and midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger both remained in Chicago, while playmaker Aleksandar Katai and forward Nemanja Nikolić traveled with the team but were assigned as substitutes for the game. Katai came off the bench in the 58th minute, whereas Nikolić, who had been crucial in the Fire’s last two Open Cup games, did not play.
“We’re really prepared for this and we need to believe first of all in our heads that yes, we can go to the finals to win this Open Cup,” Nikolić said. “We need to go step by step like always and the next step is the most difficult and it will be Louisville on Wednesday. So with all respect for our opponent, we’ll go to the field and we want to win the game.”
In the Fire’s first U.S. Open Cup game this season, Nikolić scored both goals in a 2-2 draw against Columbus Crew SCat MAPFRE Stadium that eventually concluded in a thrilling 10-9 penalty shootout victory.
Two weeks later, in front of a record-breaking Open Cup Crowd at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the Fire’s Round of 16 matchup against Atlanta United, Nikolić once again answered and provided the lone goal that allowed the club to knock out the current Eastern Conference leaders 1-0.
“We had two difficult games in the first two rounds in the U.S. Open Cup against two really good teams, in a way, so we showed great character in these games. A nice game in Wednesday will be really important for us, for the club, for our fans,” Nikolić said. “Our goal is to go to the next round.”
The match against Louisville will be one of four quarterfinals happening on Wednesday, with the other games being Philadelphia Union-Orlando City SC, Houston Dynamo-Sporting KC and Los Angeles FC-Portland Timbers. If the Fire emerge victorious, they will face the winner of the Philadelphia-Orlando City matchup in the semifinals.
"We go to Wednesday to win and to go one step closer to the final," Nikolić said.
Watch the Chicago Fire take on Louisville City FC live on Chicago-Fire.com on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. CT (stream info TBA).
